“Saturday Night Live” begins the back half of its 50th season this weekend. Here, we kick off a series of features exploring and assessing its history and cultural impact.

From the first episode, which featured a live spot for the multivitamin “Jamitol,” TV advertising has been one of the show’s primary targets. These are the commercial spoofs we like the most; share your own favorites in the comments.

1987

Compulsion

“The world’s most indulgent disinfectant.”

Parody often doesn’t age well because its target fades from memory. But even if you never saw the flamboyantly pretentious Calvin Klein Obsession ads from the 1980s, this meticulously produced satire — which turns the luxury cologne into the “world’s most indulgent disinfectant” — remains hilarious and coherent.

Dense with inspired nonsense, comic nuance and surprising twists, it creates its own ridiculous world so fully that it works independently of what it is mocking. As the protagonist consumed by an obsessive need to clean, Jan Hooks evokes Tennessee Williams heroine lunacy. (Note the hair flip and meme-worthy “Liar!”) Phil Hartman’s tuxedoed narrator commits completely to terrible metaphors and a vaguely European accent.

These superb lead performances by all-time-great cast members work perfectly in concert, capturing and skewering a specific self-serious art-house style. But it’s the comic details that distinguish this sketch: Nora Dunn’s Stepford Wife expression; the ludicrous way Hartman pronounces “jejune” and the unexpectedly rich subplot of his building irritation with Dana Carvey, who finds hilarity in subtle eyebrow raises and a self-serious turtleneck years before Mike Myers brought them to “Sprockets.”